Helloooooo Everybody!

Eleven days 'til Christmas, and a quick check of the departments around the Pole: Rob Ronderbaunt says the sleigh is ready for its test drive, with only a slight shimmy at light-speed that he's working to correct. The toy factory is running at full tilt, with elves working time-and-a-half shifts to accommodate all the necessary manufacturing! Over at the wrapping department, Snoop "Puppy" Dogg has his team working at 200% capacity. (I don't know how he does it! Elf math!)

Here's a cool thing I learned about Snoop and the wrappers: This year, they're using only recycled paper! You and I both know how holiday gifts require a HUGE amount of paper, which only gets used once. This year, at the request of many kids and parents, Snoop's team has made rolls and rolls of paper out of other paper! Snoop was showing me how plenty of paper is beautiful nowadays -- magazine pages, posters, old wrapping paper, even the comics section from your Sunday newspaper -- and so they decided to repurpose it. It looks awesome! So if you get a package wrapped in something weird and interesting this year, you'll know why. No sense in cutting down extra trees when there's plenty of paper to be found!

In other news, I noticed yesterday that the reindeer are blogging, too -- plus a couple of special guests! I love reading their perspectives on everything going on. (And no, I have never seen a mouse around here. I think it's too cold for mice!)

Finally, with swim training over and the reindeer on to running, we've moved Bill over to the mail room (which is overloaded right now), where he's sorting letters by region. Poor Bill -- being from the South Pole, he gets everything upside down: Patrick, the postmaster, asked him to alphabetize the cards and letters, but didn't tell him how. So Bill made a big pile that included IdahO, ColoradO, OhiO, OntariO, and New MexicO, and another with IllinoiS, MassachusettS, and Northwest TerritorieS! Patrick set him straight, and Bill was happy to realign his alphabetizing system.

More soon!

Love,

Santa